Genesis, Revisited
by Mary Pseud
Summary: Everyone knows what happened when the Fourth Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane was sent to Skaro, and attempted to prevent the Daleks from ever being created. Everyone is wrong.....


"When the time is right, we will emerge and take our rightful place as the supreme power of the universe!" the Dalek shrilled into the camera, and then the screen went black. The Doctor and his companions heaved a deep sigh of mutual relief. With Davros and the Kaled Elite dead, the Dalek embryo room destroyed, and the surviving Daleks trapped inside the Bunker, their progress had been set back a thousand years.

They said their goodbyes to the Thals. "Hands on the Time Ring," the Doctor said, and as he, Sarah Jane and Harry were dragged through time and space, he thought of the entombed Daleks and said to himself, "Out of their evil, must come something good."

- - -

Inside the Bunker, the Daleks quartered back and forth across the main laboratory, ignoring the heap of dead bodies in the centre of the room and the smoking chair that held Davros. Their grey-and-black bodies cast fantastic knobbed shadows under the cold lights.

"All external video communications now offline," droned one of the Daleks. Another said, "External sensors now online. No Kaled or Thal life forms detected outside the Bunker. No alien life forms detected outside the Bunker."

Suddenly there was a wet, abrupt rushing noise; the sort of noise that a Dalek, lacking lips and throat and tongue, could never produce.

Davros had sneezed.

He straightened himself and rolled his chair forward, still trailing smoke from the tiny packets of fuming chemicals that had gone off at his signal, simulating the smoking after-effects of a Dalek heat ray. "Increase ventilation by fifty percent," he said in his semi-mechanical voice, and sneezed again.

"Yes, Davros," said Security Commander Nyder, pulling himself to his feet. He stretched his shoulders for an instant as he did so; his 'death' and the trial of holding still afterwards had given him a crick in the neck. At least he had managed to slump against a pillar; that had let him keep an eye on the others in the room through half-closed lids.

At the sound of Davros' voice, the 'dead' bodies in the middle of the room began to stir. "Rise," ordered Davros, and they did. But when they finally stood and faced their leader, the faces of the Elite scientists and Security guards were eerily blank. Gharman was among them, his broad face placid and his eyes empty pits. He looked like he had never smiled or frowned or feared in his life; he looked like one of the walking dead. They all did.

"Return to your duties," ordered Davros, and the Elite moved to their desks with slow steps. He turned his shrivelled, eyeless face to his creations. "What is the status of the auxiliary incubation room?"

"Satisfactory," said one of the Daleks, its eyestalk surveying the control panel in front of it. "Embryonic life signs are stable."

"Excellent. A pity we had to sacrifice half of the current embryos to the Doctor's machinations, but we have kept the best of them, the best of us, alive. Daleks, you will proceed with your duties."

"We obey," said the Daleks, and left in single file; the Security guards followed obediently after them. With the Kaled Dome destroyed, the Daleks would have to supplement the current staff as well as security. If the Thals or the Mutos tried to penetrate the Bunker, the Daleks would be ready to defend themselves and their creator.

"Nyder," and the Security Commander followed Davros as he wheeled out of the main laboratory and into the Bunker itself.

"I trust you are satisfied with our current level of supplies, Davros," said Nyder as they moved down the corridor.

"I am, as always, more than satisfied with your efforts on my behalf, Nyder," rasped Davros. "We have everything we need to survive and to create more Daleks. The loss of the Kaled Dome was - foreseen. Inevitable, even. But now we must say goodbye to our guest."

Their guest was waiting in one of the sub-laboratories, where Davros had also been keeping the 'dead' scientist Ronson. The room was the same buffed steel and white tile as the rest of the Bunker, bleak and functional; the only abnormal thing was an elaborate wooden box standing in one corner of the room, tall enough to enclose a man, carved and decorated and with an inset dial at the top of it.

The visitor had been passing the time by verbally tormenting Ronson, his dark eyes glittering maliciously in his clever face with every thinly veiled threat. But Ronson had responded only with infuriating passivity: his face was as blank as the other Elite scientists.

The thin scars of the neurosurgery that had turned Ronson into an emotionless organic machine were barely visible across his scalp, under his disordered hair. A bruise showed on his cheekbone where he had fallen on his face in the process of acting out his death under the Daleks' guns.

"Davros," said the dark-eyed man, rising as the Kaled scientist and his escort entered. Ronson glanced up as well, then went back to staring vaguely at the table. "How did the last act go?"

"Precisely as you said it would. The conditioned Elite staff said their lines and displayed the appropriate emotional reactions on cue; the Daleks obeyed the control program and played their roles to perfection. The Doctor and his companions have already left Skaro."

"For the moment, Davros, for the moment. The Doctor will return. And others, as well."

"I will have time now. Time to perfect my creations. Time to make them the ultimate power." Davros' black-nailed hand drummed on the console of his chair for a moment. "It was pathetically easy to focus the Doctor's attention on the audio recording of his interrogation; I doubt he ever asked himself if I might have recording equipment built into my support systems. Or if I might not just be able to remember every word that he spoke." Davros quivered in what might have been laughter, if he could laugh. "With that information, the Daleks will be invulnerable."

"Always glad to help," the guest said, touching his short black beard with one gloved hand. "Now I shall leave you to your work. But I am certain I shall be dropping by, from time to time."

"Your presence will always be welcome here," said Davros. "Without your information, the Doctor could have been a noticeable impairment to my plans." Even now, Davros was loath to admit how close the Doctor had come to destroying everything.

The man moved as though to grasp Davros' hand, then paused. He did not know if Kaleds shook hands, and Davros' frailty was almost palpable; he looked like he might break at a touch. Instead Nyder stepped forward and took the guest's hand in a firm clasp. They stood face to face for a moment, staring at each other: both men were slim and dressed in black. The visitor's rich velvets far outshone Nyder's plain military uniform. And while Nyder's thin glasses and pale face radiated a deep impression of cold, the visitor's jovial expression spoke of relentless, consuming inner fire. His eyes seem to dance to the beat of unheard drums.

"To a long and fruitful alliance, Davros," the guest said, turning his attention back to the Kaled scientist.

"To our alliance - Master."

---

NOTES ON THE TALE:

Not quite a sequel to 'Genesis, Rewritten', but rather a further imagining on how this pivotal episode in the classic series might be interpreted. I found it interesting how most of the climactic events in 'Genesis of the Daleks' are seen by the Doctor and his companions only at a remove, over a video display - or not seen at all by him in person. A few smoke bombs, a little overenthusiastic screaming from the Daleks' 'victims' - and who would say whether it was real or all a play for his benefit?


End file.
